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Claudius Quotes

Browse 9 quotes about Claudius.

Claudius Quotes

“This business is well ended. My liege and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your son is mad. Mad I call it. For, to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.”

GriefDespairMadnessTragedyHamletGertrudeClaudius
Book:Hamlet
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“Seems,' madam? Nay, it is. I know not 'seems'. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forced breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly. These indeed 'seem'; for they are actions that a man might play. But I have that within which passes show - these but the trappings and the suits of woe.”

DeathGriefWoeHamletGertrudeClaudius
Book:Hamlet
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“give order that these bodies High on a stage by placed to the view. And let me speak to the unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fallen on th'inventors' heads. All this can I Truly deliver.”

TragedyHoratioHamlet OpheliaGertrudePoloniusClaudiusLaertesFortinbras
Book:Hamlet
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“The Roman Road is the greatest monument ever raised to human liberty by a noble and generous people. It runs across mountain, marsh and river. It is built broad, straight and firm. It joins city with city and nation with nation. It is tens of thousands of miles long, and always thronged with grateful travellers. And while the Great Pyramid, a few hundred feet high and wide, awes sight-seers to silence—though it is only the rifled tomb of an ignoble corpse and a monument of oppression and misery, so that no doubt in viewing it you may still seem to hear the crack of the taskmaster's whip and the squeals and groans of the poor workmen struggling to set a huge block of stone into position——”

RantMonumentsGreat Pyramid1935ClaudiusSeven WondersRoman Road
Book:Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina
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